Fresno St. facing uphill battle to bust BCS

Fresno State quarterback Derek Carr celebrates a touchdown pass against New Mexico in the first half of an NCAA college football game in Fresno, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)
The Associated Press

Fresno State quarterback Derek Carr celebrates a touchdown pass against New Mexico in the first half of an NCAA college football game in Fresno, Calif., Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

With each and every win, the noise that comes with the prospect of busting the BCS in its final year cranks a little higher at Fresno State.

Consider the decibels at an all-time high now that the Bulldogs are suddenly on the outside looking in after several weeks of projections had slotted Fresno State in its first BCS bowl game.

Now Northern Illinois, seemingly on the strength of its schedule, is in the driver’s seat and the Bulldogs are left to wonder if they can do enough to flip the script one more time.

“We realize that the noise is going to get louder and louder,” Fresno State coach Tim DeRuyter said. “I think our guys have done a really good job of handling that. It’s just one more week in that same line. I think we’re used to it. We just need to finish this thing the right way. ... I think it’ll all work itself out.”

Will it, though? Not everyone is so sure.

A day after improving to 11-0 with their best offensive showing of the season in a 69-28 win over lowly New Mexico (3-8), the Bulldogs dropped from 15th to 16th in the latest BCS standings. Northern Illinois, meanwhile, beat Toledo (7-4) last week to move from 16th to 14th, and it’s currently in position to earn the non-automatic-conference bid as a program ranked ahead of a team from an automatic-qualifying conference — American Athletic Conference leader Central Florida, ranked No. 19.

The computers simply love the Huskies.

Although human voters favor Fresno State — USA Today and the Harris Poll both have the Bulldogs at No. 13, compared with NIU’s 20th and 17th ranking, respectively — the Huskies own a considerable lead in the aggregate computer rankings.

BCS Busters? Sizing it all up

BCS Rk

Team

BCS Avg.

PVS

Harris Poll

USA Today

Comp. Avg.

Comp. %

14

Northern Illinois

0.4620

16

17

20

7

0.730

16

Fresno State

0.4124

15

13

13

17

0.330

19

Central Florida

0.3364

18

20

19

16

0.350

There, the Huskies are ranked seventh in the country — ahead of the likes of No. 7 Oklahoma State (eighth according to the computers) and No. 8 Stanford (ninth in computers) — and they’re as high as third in Jeff Sagarin’s individual computations. The Bulldogs sit at No. 17 in the average computer rankings and aren’t even rated by Kenneth Massey.

Blame the Mountain West Conference, Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel says. Thought to be on an upswing with San Jose State and Utah State’s arrival after 11-win seasons in 2012, the Mountain West has one team with fewer than four losses: Fresno State.

“The Mountain West is just not in good shape this year,” Mandel said. “It says something that, at this point in the season, nobody has fewer than four losses. That’s pretty bad.”

It doesn’t help that Fresno State’s best nonconference win — 52-51 in overtime at home over Rutgers — doesn’t look so hot now that the Scarlet Knights are 5-5 and have sunk toward the middle of the AAC. In contrast, NIU beat a 7-4 Iowa team on the road, 30-27, in its season opener and defeated a better team than the Bulldogs did last week to finally move ahead of Fresno State.

Of course, by that logic, NIU’s considerable advantage in the computer rankings should take the same kind of hit after the Huskies beat 1-11 Western Michigan on Tuesday.

After all, the Bulldogs still have a game Friday night at San Jose State (5-6), followed by the conference championship game against Utah State (7-4) or Boise State (7-4).

NIU will play either Bowling Green (8-3) or Buffalo (8-3) in the Mid-American Conference title game.

The higher-ranked team after those championship games likely will land in the Fiesta Bowl. If it’s NIU, then Fresno State will be ticketed for the Las Vegas Bowl in a development that will have a cascading effect on the rest of the Mountain West’s bowl-eligible teams, including San Diego State.

“I find that just about every new BCS ranking has some surprise in it for me,” Fiesta Bowl Director Robert Shelton said. “Fresno was holding a lead and then it (changed) last weekend for reasons that I don’t fully understand. It’s all so close. If those two teams win out, it’s going to be a race to the finish and a win by a nose for whichever one is ranked higher.”

“We’ve just got to win,” the Bulldogs’ star quarterback said. “We can’t do anything about that stuff. It’s out of our hands. ... There’s no complaining, nothing we can say in the media to help do anything. (We just have) to continue to work and outwork everybody, be the hardest-working team in the nation every week.”